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good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. egyptians have started voting in their second and final round of the country's constitutional referendum and police in pennsylvania say they have no motive for why a man shot and killed a woman at a christmas party yesterday and left and killed two men before finally being shot dead by police. the shooting happened at the same time the nra held its press conference in washington, d.c. we'll have more on the nra in just a moment. right now i'm joined by tom kotz, kaley elkins, rich lucivella of "s.w.a.t." magazine, and jackie kellens. thank you for being here. they promised, quote, meaningful contributions to stop gun violence but in a press conference in which the

organization took no questions, the executive vice president and ceo wayne lapier's only contribution was his call for armed guards inside all of the nation's schools. >> i call on congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation. and to do it now to make sure that blanket safety is in place when our kids return to school in january. >> for 30 minutes lapierre went on a tread that was steadfast, unyielded and trying to blame violence on the insane monster that is pop late our society. but it turned into a glimpse inside the mind of the man who makes the nra, the lobbying arm of the firearms industry, tick. it was easily the most riveting, chilling and revealing spectacle

that i have witnessed. >> how can we possibly even guess how many given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill. add another hurricane, terrorist attack or some other natural or manmade disaster, and you've got a recipe for a national nightmare. vicious, violent video games. a thousand music videos. isn't fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography? throughout it all, too many in the national media, their corporate owners and their stockholders, act as silent enablers if not complacent co-conspirators.

the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. >> well, i have to say, i thought this was really an insane spectacle, this press conference, and i went into it thinking two things. one, i thought, i thought the nra would take a page out of the wall street post crisis playbook. wall street post crisis said, look, we get it, we get it. it was a big crisis and we need some regulation, definitely. and they gave lip service to that and they even said we'll work with you on regulation and then behind the scenes in the lobbying n the back rooms they were able to gut a lot of that regulation and put in loopholes. this seemed like a smart, strategic approach on the part of wall street because they were able to reap the pr benefits publicly of saying, yes, obviously, we need regulation and also escape the worst of the actual real constraining effects of actual regulation. and i was expecting a similar kind of approach from the nra.

and that was clearly not at all the approach take up. were you as surprised, rich, is that what you were expecting? >> i think i expected, yes, the nra to be more political, to take a more political approach. i think what lapierre did was take the more practical approach. if we tease apart what he was saying, sometimes because we don't particularly appreciate the speaker we don't hear the message. i think there was some value in what he was saying. he was not just talking about armed security in schools, he was talking about redundant security for schools, if you will. and he was talking about providing grants to do audits for access to schools for construction of schools. and to the extent that, you know, to the extend that he brought up the media and the way we give these little monsters

attention and the way we give them an identity by mentioning their names and repeating their names creates additional little monsters. we find that these types of crimes occur in clusters. and so to that extent, lapierre is not that far off when he says how many are out there waiting? we have no idea. >> the data, we looked into the data on this sort of copy cat effect, and there's interesting findings in both directions. it is fairly unsettled. there are finding that is do suggest the large copy cat of large publicity shootings i deuces those on the border of committing these things to plan them. there are other survey data that says that may not be the case. the thing i found interesting, one place just concretely about this was the sort of focus on schools. i understand why there are books on schools because that's why this act was so horrifying, but schools are very safe places. i just want to show this graph

because i think this is important to put this, this is homicides in elementary and high schools over the years. what you see is that, you know, there are not a lot of people killed in schools in america. every time someone is killed in a school in america it is a horrific tragedy, but in terms of what are our social problems, schools themselves as sites of violence are not the thing that we, is not really the problem in terms of what the data is saying. and i felt like it, in focusing on the schools, that was maybe missing the problem. tom? >> i think it is important to realize that self-defense does not begin at the moment of conflict. there's self-defense that the society enables through regulations, through laws that have passed, through norms it tries to establish. and one of the big things that is missing from this debate, we can go back and forth and have a conversation about whether armed security would stop anything from happening, didn't help in columbine, but the bigger

question is, we as a society, what does this say when you want to put more guns in your place of education, in your place where you send your 5, 6, 7-year-old children? is that the message, the sort of society that we want to be? or do we want to take self-defense before the moment of conflict? do we want to look at legislation? do we want to put policies in place that allow us to defend ourselves before we get to a point where we say, i wish that teacher had it. by the time we get to that point, it was too late. >> hailey, were your surprised by the press conference? >> i have been optimistic for the official statement all week, and i have to say i was very disappointed. i think that their statement was a pretty huge disservice to their membership and all, i know wonderful members of the nra who have fantastic expertise, are very smart, are very, could be wonderful resources in this. and i really think that statement did not reflect any

sort of an engaging discourse and engaging in dialogue. i was shocked at how much of a monologue it was, actually. >> and there's this emerging idea, and i think it is an emerging idea that's a hopeful idea in liberal circles, so i want to reality check it, that there's this gap between the nra and its membership. you will see this statistic on polling and about specific regulatory initiatives. and i'm just curious how much you think haley and rich, how much that is the case? and this is something that exists across the ideological spectrum. large beltway based groups pursue an agenda will have divisions from memberships on the left and the right as an organizational fact. and i'm curious what your feeling is on that, haley? >> well, i was raised in the 1970s for better lack of a term, styles of the nra was when they had a lot more dialogue and discourse than perhaps they are

now. and i was raised with the mentality of them not being a lobby organization but being a resource of education and training for their members and being kind of a collective resource. and then when i became a young kind of an adult woman i realized that was not the situation we were looking at with the lobbying going on like that. >> so i think one of the things that we need to look at that happened this week is the way that all the issues were defined by the nra press conference was around the issue of gun-free schools. as you brought out in, schools in this country are very safe, but in addition to that, the premise of that argument is if it weren't for the fact that we said gun-free schools, there wouldn't be any shootings in schools. but we don't have national campaigns that say gun-free malls, gun-free spas, gun-freery lidgeous institutions and gun-free streets, that doesn't stop the killers from getting

there. the killers are coming there to do whatever they want to do and it's the access to the guns that make whatever happens in their minds a possibility. so we should be talking about how we regulate who gets the guns because i don't think it matters whether you are a member of the nra or you have never touched a gun in your life, you don't want guns in the wrong hands. >> the wrong hands is the key thing. before we get to the regulation question, i just want to talk about gun culture for lack of a better word. because i do think at this moment we say, well, if you look at the international data, it is just a fact that america has more guns than anywhere else in the world in terms of its relative to population. the next highest is yemen and we are almost doubled yemen. so there's something different about the u.s. this is american exceptionalism in one form or the other. and i want to talk to you two particularly about why that is. right after this take this break. ♪ if it wasn't for you

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we can immediately make america's schools safer. the national rifle association as america's preimminent trainer of law enforcement and security personnel, for the past 50 years, we have 11,000 police training instructors in the nra just ready, willing and uniquely qualified to help. our training programs are the most advanced in the world. that expertise must be brought to bear, to protect our schools and our children now. the nra is going to bring all its knowledge, all its dedication and all its resources to develop a model national school shield emergency response program for every single school in america that wants it.

>> that's the nra's wayne lapierre talking about this shield program yesterday at yesterday's press conference. rich, here's a question i want to ask you, there are two trends that are interesting. jackie, you pointed this out last weekend on the show, which is the total number of guns in the u.s. in household hands is increasing at the same time the percentage of gun households with guns is decreasing. so you have a smaller, it is widely held, 40% of all married household have a firearm in the home, but it's been going like this and guns are going like that. it seems we are on a trajectory with more and more guns in fewer hands. and i wonder how you think the culture around firearm ownership is changing right now in this country or has been over the last ten years or where it is going from now. >> well, i think that there's a

natural decline to some extent due to population moving into urban centers. and the regulation within those areas and the difficulty in obtaining concealed weapons permits in places like new york, in places like chicago, but i don't know that i agree that the percentage of households with guns is decreasing. i think there's underreporting there because we see every time there's one of these tragedies, in newtown, connecticut, there's a run on firearms. >> yes. across the country. we have places reporting the highest single day sales on record. >> and they are also reporting highest first purchase sales on record. so people are, people are understanding the fact that, to an extent, lapierre is right. once we have missed on our

first, second and third redundant areas of security, and it comes to guns, the only thing that can stop a guy with a gun, a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun. >> is it not totally a dystopian vision? if where we are headed, if the solution is, look, just arm everyone -- >> that's not the solution. >> but if the solution is the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun and we say we are going to miss the redundancies, then the idea of putting more and more weapons in people's hands, particularly if you're not, there's no training, right? there's no licensing. >> no, there's training. >> no, but there's no requirement for it. >> i'm just saying if a concealed carry permit there is. >> not everywhere there's not at all. it is very erratic in terms of the requirements. >> it can be erratic. there are certain states that don't require a concealed

weapons permit at all. i agree. >> but here's my question, the psychological part of this, this is important to me, which is like the idea of safety. gun as a means of self-defense. there seems to be there's a few reasons people have guns. there's shooting as a recreational activity, hunting as a recreational activity, there's home defense, the idea that i'm going to have a loaded weapon in my house because if someone breaks in i want to defend my house, and then there's this kind of vision of just the enjoyment of interphasing with the weapon and gear and training yourself. and i'm wondering how, yeah, haley, i know you want to talk about the psychology on this. >> i'm not by any means an expert on firearms, but what pushed me to write this article was the kind of vitriol we were seeing in the gun debate for lack of a better term. and what upset me was that we keep referring to gun culture in america as if it is this

monolific deal. and west texas gun culture is very different than st. louis inner city gun culture, which is very different than los angeles and miami gun culture. so to that point, i don't think -- i think that the only place you have meaningful discourse comes out of the middle. and that's not because the middle is moderate, that's because that's the only place people are talking. so when, what you want to do is you want to have a set of dialogue in the middle. because after connecticut happened, what we saw was a dueling set of monologues on either side and they were very loud and everybody was shouting. and you can't, it is filly impossible to think and shout at the same time. >> will you tell me, for viewers that have not read this article, just walk us through the basics of what you wrote about. >> well, i realized after connecticut and was having this reaction to how angry everybody

was on both sides, i realized that guns have been present in my life growing up in west texas at a lot of different milestones. all of my milestone moments have had guns present in them in some form of fashion or most of them have. and then i realized having married a man from inner city cincinnati who had never had any interaction with guns before, never even seen one in real life let alone held one and used one, that it was a very different upbringing and very different scope from a lot of people. and my milestone interaction with guns have been a lot of positive and a lot of negative ones, obviously. and so that inspired me to talk about the gap -- between the nation when we talk about gun culture being a monolific thing and of course it is not. >> you grew up, ta-nehesin britain and you talk about gun

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ta-nehesi and haley said how we think about guns and our relationship on guns is different hon where you grew up. i'm curious where you are coming from having grown up in baltimore and you think about guns. >> i grew up in baltimore in the late '80s and '90s when gun violence was ridiculous and off the charts. i'm african-american and my dad was in the black panther party. the poster of malcolm x with the m1 was very popular when i was young. i don't say that just to talk about cosmetic things but i say that to say the notion of self-defense is very important to me and was very important in the community that i grew up in. so when people talk about, you know, the desire or the need, i would go so far to say have a gun in the house because you don't know when the cops are

going to be there, if they are going to get there in time. i'm very much connected to that. i really, really am. i have a great degree of sympathy and belief that i did not live in new york, i might have a gun in my house, i don't know if i'm supposed to say that, but when people talk about that, i'm totally there with you. but when you get to the point where you say, there should be no regulation for anything, any sort of -- and you start rolling back regulation and start getting to the point where it is easier for a felon to restore their gun rights than their voting rights, then i begin to have a little trouble. i think we are going beyond self-defense at that point. >> i'm glad you brought up the black panthers because i want to make this point. last weekend i was talking about right to work laws and their origins with unsavory origins and white supremacy in the south and the fear about unions being a site of integration, but gun control fascinatingly, the first big piece of gun control legislation was introduced in 1967 after the black panthers

show up at the california state capitol with loaded weapons. and ronald reagan governor at the time said as the black panther self-defense became more and more effective at mobilizing members of the black community, the panthers attracted even greater attention among authorities. on april 5, 1967, assemblyman mulford introduced a bill, ab 1591, in the california legislature proposing to outlaw the carrying of loaded weapons. >> just to understate where the panthers were coming from in that period, immediately after a period of reconstruction, the first thing people do is try to take the guns out of the african-american community so that the community can then be disempowered and oppressed. so what i'm saying is there's a natural sort of affinity for the notion that i have the right to secure myself among many african-americans, but we are going to -- >> explain the history of this.

the history is very important. the jim crow laws, the original gun control throughout the south. the jim crow laws which established all of the laws against ownership, against carrying in certain places came after the civil war. it happened to be a democratic party institution. and it's those laws that we have been fighting against in conceal carry permit area for decades now. >> but so let many ask, the context here seems important. i should note in 1956 before they fully enacted gun violence, there was a conceal carry in montgomery, alabama, because the police chief could say who could conceal a weapon. here's my question, explain to me why it is, i'm asking you this honestly, i hear about

someone whose got a whole bunch of firearms, okay? and spends a lot of time training with those firearms and thinking about how they are going to use them. and i think, i cannot help but think there's something paranoid and creepy about that. that there's this apocalyptic sense of fear. that we are not imposed reconstruction south, right? the context here matters. the post reconstructive heart, mlk in the heart of dixie in the 1960s. the context here is very different when people had this psychology is very different. explain how i'm wrong on that. >> that's relatively easy. i'm the publisher of a firearms magazine. obviously i have more than one or two weapons. there are different purposes for different weapons. we own .22 caliber weapons for flanking and target weapons practice. we own shotguns for hunting, sporting plays and self-defense,

perhaps one by the bedside if you don't have children in the house, perhaps one in a vault. and we have handguns for personal protection for concealed carry. does that make you a gun nut? i don't think so, but i do think this. that if you own those weapons, you damn sure better be trained and safe around them. i'm not talking about trained to kill somebody. i'm not talking about trained to use them in self-defense, though you should if that's what you purchased the gun for, i'm talking about trained to be safe around those firearms. and in ordered to be safe around those firearms, you have got to practice, like anything else. you have to go to a range, you have to, in your piece, you talked about firearms your entire life but spoke about a glaucoma, a pistol, that you took from someone, the slowest move you ever made was unloading this, you had to up load it based on how you saw your

boyfriend unload it. thumb, and it's over. >> right. >> if she had trained, received training with that firearm, she wouldn't have had that fear to load it. >> let me just say this, this discussion is absolutely true that anybody who has a firearm should be trained and very knowledgeable about how to keep it safely in your home and how to load it safely and unload it safely, but the problem is there is no such requirement nationally and there's no such requirement in most states. so once a person gets ahold of a gun, they don't have those requirements and they can go into any old state and go to a gun show and buy very, very dangerous weapons. and just let's look at the case of mrs. lanza. the facts of the case of mrs. lanza. she bought a gun and wanted it for protection, she was very knowledgeable and enjoyed all the historical things you talked about and lived in an area where she could do it on a regular

basis and she was killed in her own home by her son. that is so frequently the case when guns go into the wrong hands. so the things that we are talking about, i hate to keep going back to the regulations, but it is like who has the gun in the first place? what decision do we make around who gets the gun? and how do we regulate that sensibly? that's really what we need to do. >> i want to get your response to that right after we take this breakment .

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you see, c-max helps you load your freight, with its foot-activated lift gate. but that's not all you'll see, cause c-max also beats prius v, with better mpg. say hi to the all-new 47 combined mpg c-max hybrid. talking about guns and gun culture and gun training and gun safety. haley, there was something you wanted to say. >> i was just really struck by what you said about how we need to go back to the regulations and need to talk about the regulations and what is the solution about who can and can't own a gun. and i think it, i think it bothers me that we are not having more of a conversation about what gun ownership looks like and what every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

so what guns as tools look like and what guns as weapons look like. and it bothers me that my husband who had never had any experience with a firearm has now had more experience with firearms than i had because he went out shooting with me and went out with a bachelor party and shot multiple handguns and multiple ak and a bunch of other things with recoil modifications. and he did not, he is still just as pro-gun control as he ever was, which is much more than i am, but the fabric of his understanding completely changed ability what the difference was from firing my shotgun, which he fired and was comfortable firing to an ak. >> one of the things you say and one of the points you make in the piece, i should be clear it is about recreational change from your parents and about an abusive ex-boyfriend who held you at gunpoint and the difference in the experience of that weapon in those contexts. >> right.

>> one of the things you say in the piece is you seem to put a lot of it on the weapon itself in certain ways, that like what the weapon is designed to do, there's something about the weapon in the context of shooting. it is also the design and architecture of that item. >> here's something else i don't think we are talking about. we are looking at guns as inanimate objects and they are, but every single one has a story of everything it has done and a story of everything it's capable of doing and it has a story of what it may do in the future. and i don't think we are having that sort of a discussion. >> we sort of are, right? because what we are talking about -- here is exactly that. the bushmaster, which has become famous because it was the, there were two handguns we should note, but it was the sort of rifle, i think it is called long rifle in the argot of the gun industry. this ad was used to sell the bushmaster. and again, i keep wanting to not confer, like be swept up in my

worst characterture stereotypes, but then i see something like this. this is the bushmaster firearm campaign about getting your man card back, that like the way to buy the bushmaster, collin f. is just unmanly. collin f. avoids eye contact with a fifth grader. his man card is envoked and when he gets his gun his man card is reissued. it just seems to be, this seems to cater to the worst kind of impulses around guns. >> i just want to say, this is like something i don't understand. power changes people, okay? i grew up in a situation where it was not unlikely that you might have an interaction in the street that might end violently. if you put a gun on my hip, i would think that i would be much more likely to escalate, to say things that maybe i would not say. we know if you were driving a

car, we certainly have behaviors that we'll exhibit behind the safety of a wheel we would not exhibit as pedestrians or riding a bike. >> i'm slightly more profane than hosting a show. >> that ad is a real manifestation to that. >> let me jump in here. you have not carried a gun on your hip, i do. and i can tell you that in my case it causes me to deescalate every situation. and the reason is is if i get into an altercation with you, what am i going to do? i'm going to go fisty cuffs with you with a .45 on my hip and go to ground? i'm certainly not intending to shoot you. >> well, the thing is that, i think that's -- >> we deal with those situations, without doubt. >> i mean, i certainly would agree that you or someone, perhaps a really responsibility disposition, but we can't legislation for the best case

scenario. >> here's my question, you talked about training before and knowing what you're doing with these items you have purchased. i got this interesting e-mail from a viewer talking about the difference in the state that he was in between he has a commercial driver's license and talking about the amount of regulation to maintain a commercial driver's license. this is just to drive around the van that essentially he runs his small business with. and it was every six months you come in and pass a competency test. you constantly have to be -- all he is doing is driving around a van that is, you know, that he uses to run a small business and there's this very high standard for how to say to society and through the law that you are worthy of the ability to do this thing. and one can imagine some kind of world in which the training you're talking about was actually legally checked. what would be wrong with that? >> well, i think that it's a discussion for an entire second show. what would be wrong with that, first of all, it would require

registration of every gun owner in this country, which is -- >> constitutionally odius. >> why do we have to register cars and should not -- >> because it is a privilege. because it is a privilege. because in our law that is considered a privilege to allow you to drive. it is not a privilege to allow you to own a gun. it is a constitutionally guaranteed right in the bill of rights, which tells you that it does not even -- >> but from a moral perspective, that does not bother you at all? a gun is intended to end a life. >> a hatchet or machete does the same. look at china. look at what they are doing to school kids in china today with aged weapons do. we register those? >> although the lethality is different there. >> how many were killed most recently in china? >> 27 were stabbed and they all

survived. none died. >> they have other lethal ones as well. >> there were several multiple killings with -- >> we'll return to this topic tomorrow and talk about regulation. but i would love to have you both back at the table and you guys as well. ta-nehesi coates, richard lucibella, haley elkins and jackie hilly. thank you. look, if you have copd like me,

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yesterday president obama nominated senator john kerry for secretary of state putting into place the first new member of his new national security team for the second term. kerry will be the first bit of smooth sailing for the administration nomination-wise after susan rice and more recently chuck haguele. who was leaked by the white

house as a possible nominee for secretary of defense and now subjected to fierce prenomination attacks from conservative columnists, anonymous republican staffers to name a few. they want to take down hagel in a statement saying, quote, send us hagel and we will make sure every american knows he's an anti-semite. much of the campaign focused against him is on his jewish lobby during a 2008 interview with former peace negotiator aaron david miller who joins us in a moment. >> the political reality is that you intimidate a lot, not you, but the jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here. and, yeah, i've always argued against some of the dumb things they do because i don't think it's in the interest of israel, i just don't think it's smart for israel.

now, everyone has a right to lobby, it's as it should be, and come see your senator, congressman, if you can get the guy to sign your letter. >> much like what happened with the attacks on susan rice, going after hagel have been able to wage a one-sided campaign. after leaking his name earlier this month, the white house has stayed largely silent. when asked on thursday about hagel's comments, jay carney offered a tend defense. >> i thought you aught to address that question to senator hagel. we are not in a process is and we have been through this with ambassador rice with an effort to go after somebody and you want, we haven't nominated anyone, we have made no personnel announcements. and i'm not going to engage in that. what i can tell you is that senator hagel fought and bled for his country. he served his country well. he was an excellent senator. >> the coordinated prenomination effort to brand hagel offers a

fascinating window into how foreign policy interest groups operate and has obscured the central question is hagel an ideal candidate to lead the department of defense and where is the department of defense going in the future. joining me is glenn greenwald, and we have the former senior adviser to the united nations tour on executions. spencer ackerman, the national security blog for the danger room and elise jordan who worked under condoleezza rice. i will admit, i did not realize chuck hagel was a polarizing figure until this whole thing went down. were you surprised by the reaction to hagel? >> in jewish day school we are taught that chuck hagel will come and drink our blood. so i guess it is not surprising, but the manufactured outrage of this has been just disgusting to see. you saw in a clip that you

played, the audio clip, the very next thing he says discusses the contradictory and the counterproductive elements that advocates for israel often engage in, that seems they are now demonstrating right now. that hagel talks about the interest of israel. >> i think there's a strain in washington of people who have actually fought wars unlike the people of the weekly standard who cheer for them, that have really raised the issue of what is the cost to the american people and to the united states of this steadfast port to israel. amazingly you have david petraeus head of the central command in 2010 testify before the armed services whee who said our linkage to israel is a major cause in it makes large parts of people in the middle east hate the united states and then backtrack because of how controversial it is. this is about the depressing debate we aught to be having over what cost there is to the american public and to the united states as a government to

having this constant blind loyalty to this foreign nation even when it damages u.s. interest. hagel is one of the military people who raised this issue and that's the reason there's a vicious attack against him. >> do you not think that's true? >> i'm not going to address those issues specifically, but from a civil liberties perspective i think one of the main things to focus on from looking at the obama national security team in the second administration is how will they help shape the obama administration's legacy? any president in the second administration is going to focus on legacy. one question for us from the perspective of the department of defense is is this going to be someone who is going to continue to push the idea of an always and forever war where we the united states are an outliar and no allie agrees with us. or will people within the administration now push what jay johnson talked about inrecentlyo

retire, who said it is an always and forever thing about war and we are about to reach a tipping point against it. >> i think he's a good pick for obama, and i think there has to be someone, if he is going to actually fulfill the mandate of the president, he's a strong pick in that sense. >> i think everyone has been talking at iran, i think the afghanistan withdrawal, there's going to have to be someone in that position that can hold the line against the massive political pressure that's going to be brought to bear. sometimes internally and externally to prolong the war. we'll talk to the man who interviewed chuck hagel that set off part of the firestorm, aaron david miller, right after this. and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years,

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>> i'll bring in aaron david miller, vice president of woodrow wilson center and former adviser on arab israeli issues

in the state department under republican and democratic administrations. aaron, the interview you did with chuck hagel is the centerpiece for the attacks being launched against him. i would like to hear since you were in the room and heard it in context what your reaction to this is? >> i think there are some realities here. regardless of whether chuck hagel is confirmed or not confirmed or even if he's announced, or whether he should be the secretary of defense or not, there's one basic reality that needs to be laid out. fundamentally and clearly, chuck hagel is not an enemy of the the state of israel. i would argue he's not even hostile in the state of israel. chuck hagel during the course of my interview said some things that go beyond what i would argue are the sort of norms that you do hear or do not hear expressed in congress. and the reality is, hagel believes in a special relationship with israel, but i would argue not an exclusive

relationship. he senses the fact, i think, that the united states has certain interests. we are a country of 300-plus million people with a multiplicity of interest to protect the world. israel is a tiny country living in a dangerous neighborhood, often on the knife's edge. a small country. it has its own interests. it would be fundamentally and logical to assume on every issue across the board that american/israeli interests con si side. but i think he's sensitive to israeli security interests. so what is happening, and i call it in my book, i have a name for it. at least part of what's happening is what i call the cosmic ovay. they look at the relationship driven by political realities, by strategic realities and

sometimes, i know it's a shocker, the diverging interests that sometimes separate the united states and israel. so on the narrow issue, i just need to make this point because in part it was that interview that has led to so much of the attack on chuck hagel. and from that perspective, it's really wrong. >> anti-defamation fox news talking about the potential hagel nomination, he said, chuck hagel would not be the second or third choice for the american jewish community's friends of israel. he then goes on to say they are not going to oppose the nomination, which i thought was interesting. i want to talk about why this attack is happening and what it says of the strengths of the interests going after him right after we take this break. copd makes it hard to breathe,

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hello from new york, i'm chris hayes. here with me are my guests. we have aaron david miller on satellite from washington, d.c. and we are talking about chuck hagel and the attacks against chuck hagel. there are two things here interesting. one is the new norm established, which is going after a nominee before they are a nominee, right? so the name gets floated in the case of susan rice. then you go after and they are in this weird position where they cannot defend themselves because they have not been nominated yet, but the other is ways in which the specific set of interests around the relationship to israel will try to push foreign policy in a certain way. and i think it is interesting they are going after hagel partly because of this moment on

the floor in july of 2006. this was during israel and lebanon's war and this is chuck hagel pushing the u.s. to urge a cease-fire. take a look. >> how do we realistically believe that a continuation of this system attic destruction of an american friend, the country and the people of lebanon is going to enhance america's image and give us the trust and sustainability to maintain a peace effort in the middle east? the sickening slaughter on both sides, mr. president, must end and it must end now. >> president bush must call for an immediate cease-fire. this madness must stop. the united states will remain committed to defending israel. a relationship has been in israel is a special and historic one, but it need not and cannot be at the expense of our arab and muslim relationships. that is an irresponsible and

dangerous false choice. >> what's so striking about that is that that war between israel and lebanon, which the american political establishment essentially supported unanimously as it wants to do in these sort of conflicts, was seen in israel in the aftermath of an absolute disaster tore bring down the government and the have daylight between the policy of the israeli government happens to be pursuing in a moment and what the proper policy is from the perspective of the united states, that hagel was depending there, and also in the sweep of history, he also looks like he was right about that. >> this is what is so amazing, there's more debate allowed about what the israeli government does in israel, you're allowed to say the israeli government is doing the wrong thing in israel much more readily than you can say that in the united states. what's so amazing about that clip is what chuck hagel is saying, i'm an american, i'm an american senator and my interest is what's good for the united states. and aligning ourselves with

israel as they bomb a long-standing allie for the united states is a bad interest. that's a straight common you would make about any ware, but it is rare for a member of congress to say something like that. this will show you what a strangle-hold this is over the battle of israel. and because he's willing to do that, that's why he's being attacked and it is important to make sure we have this debate that we need to have about israel and the united states. >> there also seems to be something of a proxy debate about the scope of american power, even the way that the washington debate over israel often happens. because it is not just the haguele says something that in the ab strablgt is completely innocuous on the side of saying what israel has done is counterproductive. that's not good for a friend of the united states. it's also putting out a prominent american senator saying that a war in the middle east that does not correspond to

any decent conception of the interest of the country, it is being waged for, that implicates the united states autonot to happen. and that's also something also working in the background of the criticism of hagel over his israel comments because he simply looks like someone who is a skepticism, who exhibits a skepticism, who would be at the helm of the pentagon. >> but at this point obama is going to look really weak if he doesn't own hagel. and he's been so silent. i really just don't understand why because he has political capital right now, he should use it, but he's not coming out to defend these candidates who are putting themselves on the line for him. >> he came out to defend susan rice strongly but that didn't necessarily turn the tide. aaron, i'm curious if you think this ends up being a test case for how, for where we draw the boundaries of what is acceptable or unacceptable outside the sort of boundaries of what we will allow if hagel's nomination is

sunk or are the stakes not that high? >> well, i think they are high for the administration because i worked for half a dozen secretaries of state. what i've seen over the last three weeks in washington is virtually unprecedented. this is the second punitive nominee, i mean, there hasn't even been a formal announcement of a nomination. the first was susan rice. and now she was preemptively basically forced to withdraw. and, remember, she probably was the president's preferred candidate for the job. now hagel is caught up in this. on one hand you have, obama is one of 17 american presidents to be elected to a second term, and yet we really understand now in some respects the illusions of the power of the second term president. to have another nominee, perhaps the president's preferred candidate for the pentagon,

secretary of defense, premptively challenged is remarkable and extraordinary. one other point that needs to be made regardless of who becomes secretary of defense, barack obama is most withholding president since richard nixon. there's no question about that. all power on the consequential issues of war and peace, afghanistan, iraq, the war on terror, big think strategy in iran, the israeli palestinian peace process, during his first term came in and out of the white house. secretary clinton, we'll never know whether she could be a consequential great secretary of state because the presidential essentially dominates. he does not delegate. and the reality is both at state and defense, the interesting question will be it seems to me on whether or not in the second term the president will allow his national security team to actually help shape the policy

that the president validates and authorizes. >> that is a very interesting point. i had not heard that before. i have heard other things that make me think differently about the independence of state in this administration, but one of the things i think is also at stake in the haguele discussion is the kind of amazing enduring power of neo conservativism in washington d.c. long, long, long after it should have been really definitively discredited as a conception of the world. it is remarkable, the washington post editorial board, a key sounding board to this world view, is going after hagel, again, going after hagel in ways to make me like chuck hagel who i did not have strong feelings about prior to going after him. leon panetta said the defense sequester cuts that congressman date to take effect january 1.

they also attacked hagel over his renaissance to escalate with iran. in iran you have the people who were the masterminds behind a lot of what happened in iraq, being the voices in pushing to escalate an iran and yet don't seem discredited and now they are going to try to take down someone who was an early disacceptability, although he did vote for the iraq war. this seems ridiculous to me. >> in 2009 charles freeman was a lifelong member of the foreign service, a u.s. ambassador who was nominated to lead the intelligence council from the national security council in the same neo faction that attacked him for the same reasons to express a tiny disdent on the secretary of israel. john kerry who is replacing hillary clinton, chuck hagel, you had to support the iraq war to maintain credibility in u.s.

national security circles even though the exact opposite should be true, that people who did that aught to be extremely discredited. >> at the end of the day chuck hagel is a republican realist. i don't know why that's so toxic within the republican foreign policy circles because there's just -- >> it really is, that's so remarkab remarkable. i thought after bush and the second iraq war when condoleezza rice was against the neo kan voices we would see the descendant part of the republican policy and it is not. >> i do talk at ron paul a fair amount so i'll limit myself, but that's a strain ron paul captured this election cycle with republicans. they are sick of war just like the rest of america. >> the reason is that the lobby in washington is extremely powerful. we keep wondering why they still yield power, but that's ultimately the reason. they have extreme power in washington. it's the same reason gun control is so hard to get. there are powerful lobbies and

the pro-israel lobby is one of them. >> chris, can i join in on one point here? >> yeah. >> we don't want to break the bank on this. the detractors of israel think the u.s. relationship is driven by the power of domestic politics. and israel's defenders on the other hand believe domestic politics is irrelevant. the u.s.'s relationship is driven primarily by value. and glenn should understand this, the pro-israeli lobby in the united states has a powerful voice, but it does not have a veto. and the farther away you get from capitol hill where, in essence in my judgment, there really is no genuine serious or honest debate on the issue of israel or arab/israeli peacemaking, the farther away you get from that the less influence the pro-israeli community has.

and historical record bears this out. a willful president with a smart strategy will trump domestic political interests every single time. it was true of henry kissinger, it was true of jimmy carter and it was true of jimmy baker. but it has to be a president that was smart, has a strategy and finds a way to make everybody, the arabs, the israelis and the white house a winner on this. >> there's an interesting point here, too. i think that there's a longer discussion, obviously, but i think that the power of what is called the pro-israel lobbyists, it's the pro-certain specific vision of the policy lobby, can be overstated sometimes in ways that help it. in some ways the lobby is as powerful as the power is projected to be. we have seen that a little bit with the nra as well. there's no difference how powerful you are and how powerful everybody else in the room thinks you are. sometimes those two things feed each other. we'll see with chuck hagel, i

think it is an important test case in that respect. aaron david miller, author of "the much too promised land." thank you for being here. the movie being slammed by three senior senators on torture. that's next. if you are one of the millions of men who have used androgel 1%, there's big news. presenting androgel 1.62%. both are used to treat men with low testosterone. androgel 1.62% is from the makers of the number one prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. it raises your testosterone levels, and... is concentrated, so you could use less gel. and with androgel 1.62%, you can save on your monthly prescription. [ male announcer ] dosing and application sites between these products differ.

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the film "zero dark thirty" chronicles the hunt for osama bin laden and the hunt that killed him. it also talks about torture post 9/11. the controversy surrounding the filment is on the way the cia detain knee program works and it

suggests the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation technique and integral to locating osama bin laden. they humiliate a detainee that gives information to lead to bin laden that promises to break him. >> can i be honest with you? i have bad news. i'm not your friend. i'm not going to help you. i'm going to break you. any questions? >> we know from transcripts obtained through several freedom of act requests that the filmmakers were given access to people at the department of defense and cia to research their fill. leon panetta head of the cia at the time of the raid said the information that led to bin laden did not come from somebody in the cia.

all members asked him to correct the record saying, regardless of what message the filmmakers intended to convey, the movie clearly implies the cia's coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier for osama bin laden. please consider correcting the impression that the cia's use of coercive interrogation techniques did not. no one has been held to account for crimes in u.s. law and international law. with evidence remaining about the program still classified, although our history of torture remains largely unresolved, those few making the words debunct for effectiveness are still concerned. i went into this film, i started to read a little bit of it. glenn, you wrote about it,

spencer, you wrote about it, you have different views i want to hear about, but i went in to keep an open mind. i cut myself off from reading more because i did not want impressions and i was horrified by the film. i think it is really objectively protorture. and i would say colloudes with evil. spencer, i want you to convince me that i'm wrong. >> i thought first there's the utility to the film that gets to the heart of what you said about a lack of reckoning with torture. first, there's kind of, i guess you would say an antiseptic debate when we hear in the abstract without knowing what it means the torture techniques that were used, particularly at the cia's black sense. you hear terms like stress positions, you hear a lot of terms like sleep deprivation. and in 2009 when the obama

administration declassified some of the legal memorandum from the justice department authorizing the techniques, you started to see between the lines and in footnotes a lot of what that meant. and it meant things like keeping a detainee awake by hanging him from the ceiling, making sure that if he physically slumped, when the human body naturally gets tired, the amount of pain he exhibits, the stress on his body is so intense that he simply cannot do that. >> i should say the first detainee in the film, the opening sequence of interrogation and torture, is this detainee in a stress position in which both arms are hung up. that's one of the ways in which he is deprived of sleep. >> and he's shown to have soiled himself. sexually humiliated, starving, there's also the terrifying scene of a small wooden box, which actually was used against a detainee named abuzi beta

which is a dimension much smaller than the human body with accommodate. he's shoved in while screaming out i correct information to his cia torturer. and i think there is some, in the -- with the lack of actual disclosure about this program, there is some horrible value in reckoning with what the united states did to people that i thought that "zero dark thirty" carried with it a useful disclosure to lead to a reckoning of what this thing was. and also a sense that in a movie that ends with something that the american public will applaud, the death of osama bin laden, you see that for ten years in the name of supposedly ending the war on terror, this was the amount of depravity that

existed. >> chris, i have a hard time concluding the movie is affirmatively protorture. because it does not pull any punches. when you watch the torture scenes, you are filled with revulsion. my problem is with two other things. one is that the movie starts out with, and this is a problem, with a heartwrenching account with foam, accounts of -- >> people inside the building, an actual audiotape, devastating. >> and then it is followed by a frame that says this movie is based on firsthand accounts of actual fact. and it leaves the impression, because the first part of the movie is about torture, the last part is about the killing of bin laden. both of the most riveting parts of the movie. it leaves the impression that the one torture led to the other, bin laden, and that's false. >> let me fill in the blanks here and then nancy and glenn can weigh in. film bytes here, this person

hung up and shoved in a coffin made to soil himself, that is beaten, we don't see the beating of him but see he has been beaten. ultimately there's a scene in which he is then given food, humus, and a cigarette. and he's basically broken in that scene and starts to give names. and he gives names after the interrogator, the guy in the trailer, asks him a question, there's a pause. he says, you can sit here and eat or i can go hang you up again. and immediately after he make that is tortured threat he gives up the name. i don't think there's any am g ambiguity. >> i agree with everything that's been said, spencer, except you. no, i was revolted by what i saw. i felt the same way as you. i thought by -- for starters, i just, it makes me sick to feel that the people who are victimized on september 11th

again are being victimized by being used in the beginning of this movie. it gave it this impression that you're almost watching like a documentary. and it's a movie. from a movie standpoint, the strange thing is even though you know how it's going to end, i felt that there was, i didn't have anyone to root for. >> but having no one to root for reinforces spencer's point. >> in a way it does because i thought that the actions by, that were portrayed were so horrifying, horrifying to maybe get the results that they got, which i didn't really believe. i felt like again we were manipulated into believing that toreture led to this spill. >> i want to get to you and bring in a former interrogator, actually, and put on the record a little bit about what we do know about the way that toreture was used and what information that led to right after this break. this family used capital one venture miles

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i want to bring in james

clemente from the analysis unit stationed at guantanamo bay to consult on interrogation methods. james, i want to get your sense of the film's depiction of the cia detainee program and the use of torture. before that, i want to put on the record, this is a letter from then cia director leon panetta to john mccain saying the information was not from the detainee program. we first learned about the facilitator courier's mom de guerre from a detainee not in cia custody in 2000. it also is important to note that some detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques attempted to provide false or misleading information. what was your sense on the information that was used? >> first of all, thank you for having me. i agree with leon panetta.

that was accurate what i experienced and my colleagues experienced. the film leaves a strong impression were it not for the torture that proceeded the report-based techniques, were it not for the torture that the report-based techniques would not have worked. in fact, the torture delayed the effectiveness of the report-based technique that is the fbi has been using for many decades to successfully get hardened serial killers, for example, to confess to very heinous crimes. it works with detain knees as well. in fact, what i did when i went down there and the first interrogation plan they showed me was filled with just horrendous behavior escalating all the way to torture and sending people to third countries to be tortured. so that kind of stuff was ineffective. that's why they asked us to come down to help them improve their plans. and then to show them how report

base works, i took the worst detainee. a guy who was doing nothing but reciting the koran from memory when interrogating him, i took him and used repoire-base techniques to connect him to a human building no matter who you are. in 11 days i got him to go from complete silence to jim, my friend, what can i do for you? he was working for us at that point. >> i think part of what we are doing here is going exactly where we don't want to go as a country, which is having a conversation about whether torture works or not. i don't think anyone credibly says you can't get information from torture. of course you can. the question is is that information reliable and could you have gotten it other ways without violating law and values. that's what i think -- >> should there just be a blanket prohibition the way there's a blanket prohibition on murder. >> there is a blanket

prohibition. i think one of the issues with this movie is that it shows war crimes being committed from the perspective of the cia agents who committed those war crimes. and what that leaves out fairly edited is the perspective of everyone else who is under the same pressure, including cia about agents who objected and did not try to break their fellow human beings at the time. >> but let's deal with the issue about whether you can get information from torture, because you are not dealing with average citizens here when talking about detainees. these are hardened people trained to resistorture just like our military people are trained to resistorture. in fact, what happens is you reinforce the negative stereotypes and all the horrible things they have been taught about us. you have to undermine the expectations by treating them like human beings and building a bond with them. i don't believe that torture actually gets information. >> all i want to say is going

with what mr. clemente said, i thought the most honest point in the movie was when the guy was put in the box and he was just saying anything, anything. and it really, to me, showed that torture will get someone to respond, but it's going to be bad information. that i thought was honest. >> the whole film and so many people who responded said that in the absence of torture we should not have been able to achieve what americans achieve the greatest achievement of the decade, finding and killing osama bin laden. that makes the film so disgusting and dangerous. although you're right and torture shouldn't be allowed even if it is beneficial, the reality is americans believe that torture is supportable. the ones who do, not because they don't realize it is brutal, you look at torture because you are an opponent and look at the scenes and say, wow, i'm recoiling from the scenes. americans know torture is brutal. that's why they think it works.

they have supported torture because the people we are doing it to are criminal, violent, horrible savages who need to be treated brutally because that's the only way to get information and that's the way we stay safe. that's what the film reinforces in every conceivable way. the worst part about it as mr. clemente is so persuasively saying is that it is false. it is propaganda. it is cia propaganda the film with hundreds of millions of dollars in budget and ma niptive hollywood techniques are prop beg propagandizing americans. >> i want to get you agreeing with john mccain on something right after this break. i always wait until the last minute.

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wears off. [ female announcer ] stop searching and start repairing. eucerin professional repair moisturizes while actually repairing very dry skin. the end of trial and error has arrived. try a free sample at eucerinus.com. you know how painful heartburn can be. for fast, long lasting relief, use doctor recommended gaviscon®. only gaviscon® forms a protective barrier that helps block stomach acid from splashing up- relieving the pain quickly. try fast, long lasting gaviscon®. spencer, respond to what glenn just said? >> i have no idea how people are going to see this. i try not to base my judgments based on what i presume other people see, i have no idea. i thought that the film, not

just shows the objectively horrific treatment of the detainees, but they show the degree to which the torturers approach it in almost a casual way. at some point they are not really interested in getting information. they seem interested in toying with the people. there's something just in a gut-wrenching way, disturbing and somewhat true about what happens when people are placed in positions outside accountability. and there's something that in the absence of any real reckoning with torture that i would at least like to think an audience would see as a critique of this thing. >> let me just interject a few factual things about the cia because part of the reason i think this is controversial as it is is because this was done with some level of cooperation with the cia and the department of defense, unknown levels. we are not quite clear on this. this is an e-mail obtained through a former cia spokesperson talking about

giving preferential treatment. i know we don't pick favorites but it makes sense to get behind a whipping horse. mark and katherine's movie is going to be the first and the biggest. it's got the most money behind it. and we have panetta saying this is not accurate to what happened factually. and we have the director of the cia putting out a statement yesterday basically saying this is not really quite, the this is not a full picture of what happened. >> can i intersect one thing there? >> please. >> the morale thing is self-serving for the cia. any enhanced form of interrogation did not lead to this and we did not do these kind of things. it serves very much to perpetuate the same kind of escape from accountability we have seen time and time again. the other thing is this is a problem with the lack of disclosure with what happened in these programs.

any time you see a senior official say something like, a detainee we didn't have in our custody gave up this sort of thing. well, what treatment did that detainee -- it is not like they were held by libya, pakistan, the treatment of these people was what's brutal. and we need to have some kind of disclosure about -- >> we need disclosure and accountability. what's amazing about this entire episode to me is when you read the letter from eleven, mccain and feinsteen, when they switch to talk about reality, they say coercive techniques because they cannot say the word torture because torture has a specific important legal meaning and they can't on record accuse the u.s. government of committing war crimes. >> let's talk about this again, i know you want to talk about the obama administers's active protection of the people who did this in all forms of accountable, but let me talk

about the way the film was made. we know there were all kinds of groups, the aclu, other act tichl groups and media outlets trying to get information. the obama administration said we cannot tell you anything other than what's been released because it is classified. at the same time, the filmmakers are getting non-public information. so the obama administration is passing classified information or secret information to these filmmakers basically embedding them. peter moss in the atlantic said what's disturbing about the film beyond the torture thing is it is a government-embedded movie. the cia working with filmmakers to shape the film. it is a film told from the cia perspective about the world, muslims and arabs are bad and the cia is good. that's the worst part about it beyond the torture. >> bigelow says they didn't get unclassified information but it would be unclear to know if you did or not. >> that's what was confusing is how accurate and documentary-like the whole thing seemed. and i frankly just as a regular

viewer was like, how did they find out all this stuff? how did they snow in how did they get this information? >> here's the problem, which is where you started out, chris, about the vacuum to which this movie is coming out. so there is right now a 6,000-page report of a three-year long investigation by the senate select committee on intelligence headed by senator dianne feinstein that is about the cia detention and torture program. and that report needs to be made public. because that cop collusively refutes any suggestion that torture was effective. but the key thing about this also in going back to what glenn said is the vacuum of information created by the obama administration. i think we should talk about that. >> jim clemente, i want to get your thoughts on accountability right after we take this break. . [ male announcer ] for every 2 pounds you lose through diet and exercise alli can help you lose one more

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have a healthier holiday try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase. people are going to sit in the movie theater, kathryn, and

when they see the scenes of torture they are going to ask if the means, if the ends justified the means. >> i think the film does not have an agenda. i think it just shows the story as the story of the greatest manhunt in history. that's part of that history. so we needed to, you know, basically show all the pieces of that puzzle. >> kathryn bigelow talking to matt lauer on the "today" show. the former fbi interrogator, jim clemente, what's your information on getting the record straight about what we know happened and there being accountability? because you're someone who worked inside the government and i would imagine, i would be curious to hear your thoughts on what you would like to see done on the accountability side of this. >> sure. i couldn't agree with you more, we should definitely try to release as much as of that senate report on the interrogation techniques to the public as possible. protecting sources and methods

along the way, but unless the people of the country actually know what has happened, they won't know whether or not they should be talking to their government about holding people accountable for what they did. i think it's horrendous that people can get away with treating human beings in such a manner and still be protected by the government for it. so i think that's the first stage of it, but in terms of the movie, for example, what kathryn bigelow just said, she said it's the story of the greatest manhunt in history. it is not just that story, but it's a story about the characters in there. the character of maya who was used as the tool to show how heinous torture was, her reactions to the torture and so forth were sort of to show the human side of it. and then he goes on, the same character goes on because she's pissed off now. she goes on to use somebody else to hurt the detainee she's talking to.

i think they missed an opportunity here, a real golden opportunity to show people the real value of interaction with a human being with repoire-building techniques. and instead they made it seem like torture is really the key, or at least a part of the key to getting the right answer. >> and i think if there's ambiguity, two-thirds through the way of the movie they go to the white house and say we think we have bin laden in his compound and the white house which i think is brennan, it is unclear who that person is, he says this is not enough. you have to bring us information. the cia person says, how are we going to get more information, you ended the detainee program? that line, so if the movie was neutral on this, they could have written the script without that line. >> but don't you think particularly the character that delivers that line has been portrayed as not just a monster but also as a spineless bureaucrat? and then we go on the see how,

in fact, you track the raid through, you know, particularly sophisticated surveillance methods and kind of old fashioned -- i think there was a little bit more ambiguity there. >> the last point i want to make is we need to get to this and i want to talk about this another time, the broader issue over torture is thinking about the world and through the frame of the war on terror and thinking about the u.s. security as being primarily and principally about defending the u.s. from terror attacks. that's the motivating desire of the agents of the film. the framework of the movie operating and the framework with good reason in the wake of 9/11. but i think our assessment of risks to the u.s. ten years on in terror need to change about thinking about constantly being in this permanent state of zelousness against the next

attack. james clemente, thank you for joining us. what we didn't know last week we now know, my answers after this. [ loud party sounds ] hi, i'm ensure clear... clear, huh? i'm not juice or fancy water. i've got nine grams of protein. that's three times more than me! [ female announcer ] ensure clear. nine grams protein. zero fat. in blueberry/pomegranate and peach. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history.

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so what do we know now we didn't know last week? thanks to the latest monthly state of the climate global analysis report from the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, we now know where last month stands in the history books. it was the fifth hottest november since the start of recordkeeping back in 1880. it was the hottest november in the southern hemisphere and it was the 333rd consecutive month of hotter than average global temperatures meaning if you were born after february of 1985, you have never experienced a month of temperatures at or below the global average. we know that when aberrational conditions become the norm, it's hard to recognize their dangers but we also know if we don't recognize and act on these dangers it won't be long before

the current norms feel like the good old days. we know what the army wants to do with staff sergeant bales, the man accused in a shooting spree in afghanistan this march. the army wants to execute him, prosecutors revealed this week. at a hearing last month, witnesses testified that bales continued to shoot as the victims shouted we are children, we are children. his attorney says the army is trying to avoid the issues of multiple deployments and post-traumatic stress. we know that afghanistan and america share the grief of mourning for too many dead. finally, thanks to a remarkable criminal case still unfolding in canada, we now know that the maple syrup there is just as valuable as it is delicious. the "new york times" reports that on tuesday, three men were arrested for allegedly stealing six million pounds of maple syrup valued at $18 million from the country's global strategic maple syrup reserve which is a real thing. since quebec can produce around 75% of the world's supply, excess reserves are stockpiled. what oil is to opec, syrup is to

the federation of quebec. went down like this. thieves who were basically inside guys entered part of a warehouse with 16,000 drums were stored, then loaded up trucks with their bounty and started selling to buyers in canada and across the border in new hampshire and vermont. we also know how seriously this crime is being taken. roughly 300 people have been questioned and 40 search warrants enacted so the five suspects still on the run know that justice will likely be served and it will likely be sweet. want to find out what my guests now know they didn't know when they began the week. glenn? >> the country continues to mourn the deaths of 20 children in newtown, connecticut but at the same time, the u.s. government continues a drone program in multiple muslim countries that continues to kill hundreds of children and innocent people around the world. we know how much a community is devastated, a country is devastated by the death of innocent children using violence. time we started thinking about how communities are affected by our violence as well.

>> i think you wrote something about this and i have longer thoughts about the sort of emotional attachment and distinctions between the drone program and an armed gunman shooting children. >> there are clearly differences but in terms of impact on these communities, the tragedy that occurs when innocent children are killed using force, i think it's time we give a lot more thought to the impact that we have with our own actions in that part of the world. >> putting yourself in the shoes of a parent who has a child, who had their life taken, i think the project of enlarging the empathy that we can feel as a nation is a really important one, particularly in the era of constant war. >> this is picking up off of that. we now know the government's response to our lawsuit challenging the targeted killings of three u.s. citizens in yemen last year, one of whom was a 16-year-old american boy, and the government's response is the belief that not only can it carry out those killings in secret, but it should be able to do so without any judicial review at all. it's harder to think of anything further from the constitutional

requirement of due process before the deprivation of life. >> spencer? >> just now i learned that chris hayes is soft on "far sides" inferior second record. but this week i learned that a mode for fueling robots for deep space exploration, one version of that theory in the national research labs is to use microbes and sugar to basically metabolize fuel that can conceivably in a high radiation and low thermal environment possibly get us to the far end of the solar system. >> nancy? >> not as much what i learned as my on conclusion. i think that gun violence in this country should be treated as domestic terrorism because i don't see any difference between these poor children that get killed in mass shootings and kids in urban areas that are caught in the cross-fire of gang warfare, of drug intimidation and even i see it all as the same kind of terrorizing of american citizens, innocents of

all ages. >> i worry about that precisely because i worry that in the wake of tragedy, the policy positions we bring do not come with a sufficient level of rigor and analytical decision and conceptual clarity. we will talk tomorrow about trying to bring that clarity. my thanks to glenn, hina, spencer, and nancy. thanks for getting up. thank you for joining us today for "up." join us tomorrow, sunday morning at 8:00. i'll have former new jersey governor jim florio and dean baker from the center for economic and policy research. coming up, melissa harris-perry. reaction to the jaw-dropping nra statement about school shooting in newtown, connecticut. plus controversy about "django's" depiction of slavery. that's coming up next. see you here tomorrow at 8:00. o] playing in the nfl is tough. ♪ doing it with a cold, just not going to happen.

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